Skip to content

Alpine Linux for WSL

I took a break from writing documentation and set up the build of a minimalist Alpine Linux distribution for WSL. The project is still in testing, so not all the features common in Windows Subsystem for Linux distributions have been implemented or tested.

The distribution is based on the minimal root filesystem of the latest version of Alpine 3.23.2, with the addition of WSL-specific configurations and settings. Builds are available for amd64 and arm64 architectures. All archives have the .wsl extension, allowing for double-click installation.

Warning

The arm64 build has not been tested.

A -2 suffix is added to the Alpine 3.23.2 version to denote the distribution revision and reflect the applied changes.

Current status:

  1. Building distributions for the amd64 and arm64 architectures.
  2. Installing additional packages, currently only: bash, ca-certificates, and tzdata.

  3. Adding WSL-specific configurations:

The distribution can be downloaded from the alpine-for-wsl repository and installed by double-clicking or using the command:

wsl --install --from-file alpine-3.23.2-2-x86_64.wsl

To receive the latest Alpine versions, add an additional, regularly updated distribution list. Instructions for adding it are available on the Additional WSL distributions list page.

Roadmap:

  1. Add the installation and launch of the OpenRC init system and define the list of services required for configuration.
  2. Configure the addition of Windows paths.
  3. Add OOBE script to create a user, set a password, and add them to groups during the instance's first launch.
  4. Add cloud-init.

To report a problem or request a feature, use the issues section of the repository.